“Will our time together cause people’s view of, trust in, and desire for God’s glory in Christ and him crucified to increase?”

– Bob Kauflin (Worship Matters, 79)

As a leader, are you asking this?

What is your natural response when disappointment strikes? When things go wrong? To put it bluntly, when life is pretty much crap? Depression. Disillusionment. Feelings of abandonment. Ponder a few Psalms with me:

“If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction” (Psalm 119:92).

“Trouble and distress have come upon me, but your commands are my delight” (Psalm 119:143).

“His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse, nor his delight in the legs of a man; the Lord delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love” (Psalm 147:10-11).

I love how the word ‘delight’ jumps out of these verses. I know when you are in the middle of a difficult, prolonged struggle, this seems impossible to do. But I think it’s the most important action. Let your delight be so rooted in the Scriptures so that when disappointment comes, your true joy and true life remains.

The Word of God is enduring.

Jesus Christ is faithful.

He cannot let you down.

And as Psalm 147 reminds us, God’s delight is not in our human strength, talent, or ingenuity. He delights in those who simply fear him and hope in his love.

Be strengthened today.

Just watched this very powerful song story from Hillsong Australia. What makes this song powerful is it’s backed by a life of desperate faith in an all-sufficient Savior. Lyrics cannot just be lyrics. Lyrics must be lived. It’s hard to hold the tears back on this one.

This past Thursday night, we had a great discussion as a worship team. I posed the question, what is primary and what is supporting about what we call worship in the church today? Think about it…we do a lot of things. We arrange music. We create music with lots of instruments. We enjoy being creative. We sing. We jump. On a more serious note, we witness miracles due to the presence of God in our midst: healings, salvations, deliverances. We involve a lot of people in this process every week in corporate worship. We came to this conclusion: what is primary about worship is the glory of God [God being cherished in the hearts of His people]. Everything else is not just secondary, but supporting. All other aspects of worship must be supportive of our primary goal to glorify God.

Do you agree?